Astrology is a Master Cookbook for Life

I am often thinking of the different ways I can explain astrology. Today I am going to use the metaphor of cooking for astrology and compare how this works. Of course this metaphor is going to make more sense to those of you who cook or have used a recipe.

When an astrologer looks at someone’s natal chart, we can see the way a person is most likely to view life, whether easy or challenging, bittersweet or fantasy like. In the same way, a good cook can look at a recipe and determine if the dish is going to be savory or sweet, fluffy or flat, tangy or salty, sour, bitter, spicy  or earthy.

Let’s begin by making some comparisons:

Just as each recipe has ingredients, the type or quality of those ingredients, the way it is prepared or cooked and the atmosphere in which the food is  prepared, so it is with Astrology and our lives.

The flour, water, milk, eggs, meat, veggies of any recipe are like the planets. They are the main characters of the final product. In a recipe, it is the dish which is to be eaten for nourishment and pleasure, in life it is for the person to express all flavors of her/himself to the fullest expression for all of us to enjoy and grow.

Now what do I mean by the quality of the ingredients? The quality is what flavors the ingredient and therefore the recipe, just as the zodiac signs give a quality or flavor to the planets. There are different types of flour: whole wheat, pastry, bread, all purpose, almond, rice, garbanzo bean flour; different fat contents for milk: Skim, 2%, condensed, evaporated, whole, whipped cream. These are akin to saying that  like flour you have say Saturn, and like whole wheat flour, you have Saturn in Taurus, and like milk, you have Venus, and like skim milk, it may be Venus in Capricorn.

Now where the food is cooked or prepared may seem obvious to you, in the kitchen, right? Well, I am actually meaning in which appliance. Do you put the roast in the oven or do you cook it on the stove top? In the same way, is your Venus in Capricorn in the fourth house of home and family or in the fifth house of your self expression? Just like you cannot get fried fish from putting the fish in a BBQ grill, a person is not likely to express Venus in Capricorn in the fifth house if it is actually in the first house.  

Weather affects barometric pressure.  High pressure and low pressure, temperature and humidity  can be read on a barometer thereby telling the current weather patterns. So it is with a transit; they are the current weather pattern viewed from the astrological side. One wouldn’t want to make a soufflé during a thunderstorm or have a BBQ in the rain, and in the same vein, you wouldn’t want to sign a contract to buy a home if Mercury was retrograde or Uranus was conjunct your IC, because the result, whether in baking or in astrology, points to a less than favorable outcome!

There is a difference between baking and astrology. Astrology gives us a predictive ability to know the likelihood of a favorable outcome or a challenging period by paying attention to the current weather pattern(s), or the transits of the outer planets in aspect to natal planets.  When you bake, you have no idea what the weather/environmental  conditions will be once you start to mix your ingredients. Of course you can watch your local meteorologist for insights into the coming weather patterns, but the meteorologist isn’t going to tell you this storm is going to last 18 months or just an afternoon.

Being a good cook and a good astrologer take time. One must learn over time through trial and error, with flashes of insight and leaps in understanding. One of the goals  both share is the ability to look at a piece of paper and divine the overall quality of that which is printed thereon, whether recipe or astrological chart.

Wishing you well with your recipes and your astrology,

Michael